•The pace of Syrian refugees arriving in Za'atri camp, in northern Jordan, has doubled, with 10,200 arriving in the past week, heralding what could be a bigger mass movement, the UN refugee agency has warned.

•China is hosting Egypt's newly elected president, despite its uneasiness with the Arab Spring revolution that helped bring him to power.

Updated at 4.48pm BST

3.56pm BST

Troops 'demanded hospitality then killed their hosts'

Mona Mahmood has spoken via Skype to another resident of Darayya, who gave his name as Abu Mua'tasim. He spoke of Syrian troops demanding hospitality – and then killing their hosts.

The Syrian army have stayed in some of the houses. One of these houses belongs to my friend. They made it a base. People were forced to serve them food and tea, and just before they were leaving they killed the people in the house. That was on Saturday. I know the family.

They did the same thing with our neighbour Muhammad al-Sayed. The Syrian army stormed his house, [and] had some grapes, fruit and tea. He himself was serving them, but when they were just pulling out of Darayya, they killed him.

Another man, Abu Yousif, was just standing by his house when the Syrian army stormed his alley. When he saw them he ran home. They detained him, and later on we found his body at the outskirt of Darayya.

Updated at 4.11pm BST

3.50pm BST

Darayya: 'bodies in the basement'

Last Friday, our colleague Mona Mahmood spoke via Skype to a resident of Darayya district in Damascus who gave his name as Mazen Abu Kinan (see interviews here and here).

After the massacres at the weekend in Darayya, she contacted him again today. This is what he said:

We are gathering ourselves in Darayya today. There are no Syrian army here and some of the roads are open. The siege on Darayya is more at ease today. We are taking the wounded people to the hospitals, but we are still finding bodies.

We found eight bodies today at a basement near al-Sharya secondary school, between Darayya and Mouadamiya district. People in each building are checking the basements to find out whether there are bodies or not. In some of the deserted buildings they tracked down bodies from the smell coming out.

After the conversation we had last Friday, we were raided twice – first by the Syrian army, which was combing the district and then by death squads from the shabiha. Many alleys in Darayya were raided two or three times.

When they were coming closer I left the house with my cousin. As we were fleeing – about 500 of us – we saw a body in the street near Musa'ab Ben Umair mosque. We tried to pull it out but the shooting was getting heavy so we left it and ran away.

My mother told me the Syrian army stormed our house and wanted to take my brother but my mother begged them to leave him. They told my mother they wanted my brother because they had seen him on the roof watching them and they thought he looked like one of the FSA.

The Syrian army, according to my mother, were arguing among themselves. Some of them were saying he was the man they suspected; others said no, he was not. Many people in our neighbourhood were killed – executed.

I myself have not seen the execution of any man, but I'm pretty sure they are [a mixture of] civilians and FSA.

One of the women, a relative of my mother's, was yelling at the Syrian army and shouting 'Allahu Akbar' as they were detaining her husband. She was taken, too, and until now we have not heard from either of them.

When the Syrian army was leaving any alley, people would start to search for the bodies. The Syrian army stayed in Darayya for two days and a half. We gathered a few bodies in Abu Sulaiman al-Darani mosque to enable the families to identify them. Some of the bodies were buried immediately.

The total number in Darayya so far is 400 bodies. The number of bodies buried unidentified is more than 100.

One of the massacre survivors told me that when the Syrian army stormed their alley, they put more than 50 people up against the wall. As they began spraying them with bullets, he threw himself to the floor. He was covered with blood though he was not shot. He pretended that he was dead. Four of his family were killed.

Two tanks and a few members of the Syrian army broke into Darayya two hours ago. Shabiha are in the headquarters of the Red Crescent and are distributing foodstuffs among the people.

The Syrian army were looking for specific families who were well known for being in support of the revolution. More than 22 people belonging to the Saqa family were killed; the al-Abar family lost more then 25 members.

Updated at 4.05pm BST

3.08pm BST

Car bomb 'killed seven'

More detail on the Damascus car bombing from Reuters:

Seven people were killed and scores were wounded when a car bomb exploded on Tuesday at a funeral in Damascus, witnesses said, in an attack that an activist group said had targeted supporters of President Bashar al-Assad.

They said the bomb exploded at the entrance to a Druze cemetery in the Jaramana district of southeast Damascus, hitting the funeral procession of two men killed in bombings a day earlier.

One witness counted seven bodies on the street after the blast, and said as many as 150 people were wounded. Another said she saw charred bodies including children.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based opposition body which monitors the violence in Syria, said the two men being buried on Tuesday were supporters of Assad, who is fighting to crush a 17-month-old uprising against his rule.

Updated at 3.56pm BST

2.17pm BST

Car bomb reported in Damascus

Syria's state news agency says a booby-trapped car has exploded in a Damascus suburb, killing a number of civilians. AP reports:

SANA says Tuesday's blast in Jaramana targeted a funeral procession for two people who were killed a day earlier in the area.

It says it is the third bombing in Jaramana in the past 24 hours.

SANA says that an explosive device detonated in a car in Jaramana on Monday killed its driver. It says the device was attached to the car by an armed "terrorist" group.

Another car blew up in the area overnight, also killing the driver.

No further details were immediately available. It was not clear whether the targeted funeral procession Tuesday was for those killed in the earlier blasts.

Updated at 3.11pm BST

2.00pm BST

'They had been slaughtered with knives and shot'

Our colleague Mona Mahmood has been speaking via Skype with a resident of al-Qadam district, in south Damascus, who gave his name as Abu Hamza. He described that latest killings there (which can also be seen in a horrific video).

Today at nine in the morning we found five bodies who were freshly killed in al-Qadam district near Aisha mosque. Their bodies were still bleeding. They had been slaughtered with knives and shot at close distance. Two of the bodies had smashed heads. There are many [government] checkpoints at the outskirts of al-Qadam district. Most of the people disappeared at these checkpoints.

This is not the first time we have found bodies. During August, we have found more than 25 – sometimes four, sometimes six [at a time]. The discovery of these slaughtered bodies made the people in al-Qadam district flee to another areas in fear of their lives. The population is more than 300,000 people but for two weeks now 90% of the people have fled. People are scared of repeated massacres. The big problem we have here is that al-Qadam district is surrounded by Alawite districts.

What we started to have here … people who are off work would be arrested or kidnapped by [pro-government] People's Committees based at the outskirts of the district. They would disappear for two or three days, and then we discovered the bodies at night.

The five bodies we found today are of men aged between 25 and 45. People were able to identify two of them, a body belonging to Anass Ahmed and another, of Ziyad Abdulwah al-Masseri.

Al-Qadam district has been under a heavy fire for having [an FSA presence]. The Syrian army have not been able to storm it so far, but they might come at any moment. The FSA decided not to base itself in al-Qadam for the safety of the people but in al-Bassateen, the orchards at the western part of the district. It is adjacent to Darayya.

If the Syrian army and tanks started to move to storm al-Qadam, the FSA would come from the orchards to counter them. For three weeks now, we have been shelled daily by the tanks, which are based at the highway. There are three tanks constantly there.

Every evening, these tanks would shell al-Qadam and al-Assali district. There were days when we got more than 40 shells. Most of the families decided to to go to the shelters at the mosques or the basements to spare themselves the shelling. They are scared that they will have the same fate as the people of Darayya.

More than 150 people have been wounded by the shelling by these tanks. Many houses have been damaged because the shelling is random, though sometimes it targets activists' houses.

A week ago, a tank came almost at dawn. It fired six shells against two houses for activists – they were levelled completely. Three people were killed and more than 50 wounded.

The activist Mazen Khidier who was killed in the shelling had just been released that morning from al-Khateeb security office. He was detained for four months for taking part in a demonstration against the regime. He was just receiving his friends, who came to say hello to him. Many houses near Khidier's house were hit, too.

The Syrian army and shabiha are based at al-Qadam police station. Tanks, security vehicles and other shabiha are based near the train station. It was one of the main train stations in Damascus; now it has become a station for the shabiha.

As houses are deserted by the families, shabiha vehicles storm them and confiscate most of their contents. The families fled to al-Kisswa and Sahnayia districts. They are living in mosques and schools.

The FSA in al-Qadam district is made up of defected soldiers and officers. Most of them are young – between 18 and 25 years. [While in the government army] they refused to carry out orders to kill civilians, and some of them defected because their houses were raided. They fled to the orchards of al-Qadam, along with other men who were wanted by the regime and knew they would be tortured and killed if arrested. They are co-ordinated with the FSA in Darayya, where the leaders of the FSA are based. Most of them are from al-Qadam district, others from Homs and Der Ezzour. Any FSA men who want to launch attacks in Damascus have to come to al-Qadam district.

The FSA are protecting al-Qadam district from storming by the Syrian army. We are so worried that we will face the same fate as Darayya. Families who are still in the district are warned that at any moment they might need to flee to avoid a massacre like at Darayya. There are many signs and news that we will be stormed imminently.

We have more than 500 FSA men here. They are fighting within Hudhaifa Ibn al-Yamam brigade, Liwa al-Islam and a new brigade, which just arrived. They are volunteers from Houran, in Deraa. They came to take part in the battles in Damascus.

If the FSA capture a suspected man, they form a military court to try him. If the people confirm that the man works for the regime but is in support of the revolution, the FSA release him and give him back all his belongings; otherwise, they will kill him.

Most of the people who are killed here are civilians. Their families are the founders of the revolution, and organise protests against the regime. Ninety per cent of al-Qadam district is in support of the revolution.

Updated at 2.59pm BST

1.16pm BST

Summary of the latest developments

•Syrian military helicopters have dropped hundreds of leaflets over Damascus and its suburbs urging rebels to hand over their weapons or face 'inevitable death', AP reports.

•The pace of Syrian refugees arriving in Za'atri camp, in northern Jordan, has doubled, with 10,200 arriving in the past week, heralding what could be a bigger mass movement, the UN refugee agency has warned.

•The French president, François Hollande, has urged Syria's divided opposition to form a provisional government, saying France would give it official recognition. US officials said the move was premature, in comments that met criticism from the head of the opposition Syrian National Council.

•China is hosting Egypt's newly elected president, despite its uneasiness with the Arab Spring revolution that helped bring him to power.

Updated at 2.18pm BST

12.48pm BST

Kafranbel attacked

The video above is said to show the aftermath of air strikes earlier today on Kanfranbel, in Idlib province. At least 15 people are reported killed, though the Guardian cannot confirm this. Below: burial of the dead.

Home-made artillery

CJ Chivers of the New York Times has posted a photo on his blog that is said to show "a workshop-grade artillery round" manufactured by the Free Syrian Army.

He comments: "It is a weapon that is both a testament to the anti-government forces’ resourcefulness and their shortage of conventional arms."

Updated at 1.01pm BST

11.56am BST

SNC chief criticises US

The head of the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) has criticised US officials for saying it is premature to speak about a provisional Syrian government.

Abdelbaset Sieda said the opposition was making "serious" preparations and consultations to announce a transitional government, but he admitted no such move was imminent, according to AP.

Yesterday, the French president, François Hollande, called on the Syrian opposition to quickly form a provisional government, saying France would recognise one. But US officials said the opposition was too fragmented to take the step.

In a telephone interview with AP, Sieda said the American comments showed the international community was unready to take decisive decisions when it came to Syria.

Updated at 1.01pm BST

11.50am BST

Planning for a transition

Looking beyond the current turmoil in Syria, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) has published what it describes as "a comprehensive vision for a post-Assad order".

Forty-five "prominent opposition representatives of varied backgrounds" were involved in producing the report, which "identifies challenges and risks, and puts forward concrete recommendations in six policy fields crucial for a successful transition".

Updated at 12.21pm BST

10.51am BST

Flood of refugees increasing

The pace of Syrian refugees arriving in Za'atri camp in northern Jordan has doubled, with 10,200 arriving in the past week, heralding what could be a bigger mass movement, the UN refugee agency said today. Reuters reports:

"We do believe this could be the start of a major, a much larger influx into Jordan," Melissa Fleming, chief spokeswoman of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a news briefing in Geneva.

Overall, 214,120 Syrians have been registered in four neighbouring countries (Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey), exceeding the UNHCR'S forecast of 185,000 for this year. It has "revised significantly upward" its projection, Fleming added.

The UNHCR also reports a "dramatic increase" in Syrian refugees arriving in Turkey, with peaks of 5,000 a day arriving over the past two weeks.

Fisk interviews foreign minister

I asked about chemical weapons, of course. If Syria had such weapons, they would never be used against its own people, he said. 'We are fighting armed groups inside Aleppo, in the Damascus suburbs, before that in Homs and Idlib and this means fighting within Syrian cities – and our responsibility is to protect our people.'

And the infamous shabiha militia blamed for atrocities in the countryside? Walid Muallem doesn't believe in them. There might be local unarmed people defending their property from armed groups, he says. But pro-regime, paid militiamen? Never. No war crimes charges against the Syrian foreign minister, then. But the guns still thunder away outside his windows.

Updated at 10.36am BST

9.51am BST

Kuwait's prospects for democracy

The political crisis of June 2012 has emboldened Kuwaitis calling for constitutional reforms, Jane Kinninmont writes in a new paper for Chatham House, the British foreign policy thinktank.

Supporters of reform across the Gulf region hope Kuwait will set a precedent by developing a genuine constitutional monarchy; conservatives think quite the opposite, she writes. The paper notes:

• Kuwait's parliament has an adversarial relationship with the government. With neither the rights nor the responsibilities of governing, elected representatives largely function as an opposition to the royally appointed cabinet.

• Parliament can veto government actions, but has few powers to propose solutions to problems. There are no clear mechanisms to resolve legislature-executive disputes, except for the outright dissolution of parliament by the ruler, which has become almost routine.

• This state of affairs is widely blamed for a poor recent record of implementing government investment projects and the limited success in bringing in foreign investment. The perception that Kuwait's relative democracy hinders its economic development has negative repercussions for the perceptions of democracy in the Gulf region.

• Parliament could be improved by the introduction of political parties and appointing MPs to ministerial positions, but there are broader questions about the functioning of an elected parliament in an oil-rich, state-dominated economy and the meaning of democracy where most of Kuwait's population are non-nationals.

Updated at 10.15am BST

9.46am BST

China welcomes Morsi

China is hosting Egypt's newly elected president, despite its uneasiness with the Arab Spring revolution that helped bring him to power.

Mohammed Morsi, who took office in June as Egypt's first freely elected civilian president, is due to be welcomed at the Great Hall of the People at the start of a two-day trip. The Associated Press says:

It is Morsi's first state visit outside the Middle East and Africa since becoming president, underscoring Beijing's importance as one of five permanent members of the UN security council and as a vital source of trade and investment. The China visit is also seen as part of a reorientation of Egyptian foreign policy away from a heavy focus on Washington.

"The Egyptian government could count on China as a reliable partner to rebuild its post-upheaval nation," China's official Xinhua News Agency said in a commentary Monday.

Morsi was preceded to Beijing by a delegation of 80 Egyptian business leaders who planned to meet on investment projects with 200 of their Chinese counterparts on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Updated at 10.15am BST

9.37am BST

Leaflets warn of 'inevitable death'

Syrian military helicopters have dropped hundreds of leaflets over Damascus and its suburbs urging rebels to hand over their weapons or face death, AP reports.

The warning comes amid a widening military offensive to recapture areas on the edge of the capital and its outskirts that have fallen into the hands of rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad.

The focus of the 17-month uprising has returned to the capital's suburbs after weeks of heavy fighting in the northern city of Aleppo.

The leaflets dropped Tuesday are signed by the armed forces and the army's general command.

The leaflets said the Syrian army is determined to "cleanse every inch of Syria" and that "gunmen" have no choice but to give up their weapons or face "inevitable death."

Updated at 10.14am BST

9.33am BST

Non-aligned meeting in Iran

The Syrian government news agency has a lengthy report of the Non-Aligned Movement's conference in Tehran. It begins:

Chairman of Iran's Shura Council's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Alaeddin Boroujerdi announced that a proposal was presented to form a committee which includes Iran, Egypt and Venezuela to resolve the crisis in Syria, adding that the three countries are members in the Non-Aligned Movement.

"Syria's issue is internal.. though some organizations like the OIC have suspended Syria membership, but any change in the reality didn't happen," Boroujerdi said in a statement on Monday.

On the role of NAM conference to resolve the crisis in Syria, Boroujerdi added "there are proposals to make use of the possibilities of the member states to resolve the crisis."

He underlined that the situations in Syria are stable in contrary to what is being broadcast by a number of western media, saying that the Syrian government has control on all aggravated regions like Aleppo.

Updated at 10.14am BST

9.18am BST

Refugees injured on border

A van carrying Syrians fleeing the violence in Aleppo crashed and overturned today at the Lebanese Masnaa border crossing, injuring at least 19 passengers, some of them critically, the Daily Star reports from Beirut, citing the state-run National News Agency.

Updated at 10.13am BST

9.02am BST

Iran 'fighting in Syria'

A commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard appears to have given the first public acknowledgment that the Islamic republic is militarily involved in Syria, the Wall Street Journal reports.

"Today we are involved in fighting every aspect of a war, a military one in Syria and a cultural one as well," Gen Salar Abnoush, commander of IRGC's Saheb al-Amr unit, told volunteer trainees in a speech Monday.

The comments, reported by the Daneshjoo news agency, which is run by regime-aligned students, couldn't be independently verified. Top Iranian officials had previously said the country isn't involved in the conflict.

8.53am BST

Video of abducted journalist

The Committee to Protect Journalists has called for the immediate release of the Turkish cameraman Cüneyt Ünal, who appeared exhausted and bruised in a video aired on Monday (see below), in which he said he had been taken captive while reporting in Syria.

Ünal, a cameraman for the US government-funded broadcaster al-Hurra, was reported missing in the north-western city of Aleppo on August 20 along with a Palestinian al-Hurra colleague, the reporter Bashar Fahmi. Ünal makes no mention of Fahmi in the video clip.

The journalist does not explicitly name his captors in the video. Ünal recounts traveling with an armed group that clashed with "Syrian soldiers and gendarmerie".

He says: "After that, they took me from the armed group and brought me here." He does not state where he is being held. The date of the video is also unclear.

Summary of the latest developments

Welcome to Middle East Live. Here is an update on the latest developments relating to the conflict in Syria.

•The French president, François Hollande, has urged Syria's divided opposition to form a provisional government, saying Paris would give it official recognition. American officials said the move was premature. "We're nowhere near that yet," one said.

•A Syrian military helicopter crashed in flames after it was apparently hit during fighting between government forces and rebels in the capital, Damascus. State-run media confirmed the crash in Damascus but gave no details.

•The opposition Local Co-ordinating Committees reported 231 people killed in Syria yesterday, 148 of them in and around Damascus. High death tolls in the city have been reported for several days, with claims that at least 200 people were massacred in the Darayya district at the weekend.

When the Syrian army want to storm any street or alley, they fire first and then break into the houses. They are taking the men's IDs to check their details. It seems they have a list of wanted people. If they get inside a deserted house, they destroy all its contents.

•Egyptian authorities late on Monday arrested a Syrian man who threatened to blow up the Arab League's headquarters in Cairo after he learned that his parents had been killed in Syria during a battle between the rebels and troops loyal to President Assad, the Egyptian news agency MENA reported.